House by Tracy Kidder is a novel about family's plan for constructing their first house. The novel articulates the perspectives and sentiments of three groups involved in the house's creation: the customers, the carpenters, and the architect. The setting is in New England, which has a long tradition of carpentry and home building.

Although the novel accurately portrays the process of building a house, the novel is also an analogy for the American dream. Each of the group has their own vision and ideas about building the house. The architect represents the Enlightenment Era, in which aesthetic and grandiose vision of the house is put on a pedestal. The carpenters are more pragmatic and are concerned with capital. The prospective owners have various ideas on how they want the house to be and are worried about budget management.

In a sense, the house can be seen as a modern-day American Tower of Babel, in which various groups try to build it to reach some higher goal, but have too many miscommunication issues to complete the project.